Eight-year-old student is carried by soldiers after he was found in a school some five days after Monday's deadly quake. Photograph: Dan Chung

An eight-year-old boy was among several survivors pulled from the rubble in the town of Beichuan yesterday, some 120 hours since Monday's earthquake which may have killed up to 50,000 people and has left 4.8 million without homes.

Last night thousands of rescuers and survivors fled to the hills in Sichuan province amid fears of flooding in areas already devastated by the 7.9-magnitude quake. An estimated 5,000 people have died in the town, with another 4,800 still buried.

Soldiers carried old people from the town as roads were jammed with vehicles. Further north, a landslide cut the Qingzhu river and devastated three villages in a valley near Qingchuan